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Stefan
King Stefan,simply known as Stefan, serves as the main antagonist of the film. He was an ambitious man who was Maleficent's best friend/love interest when they were younger. After getting King Henry's confidence by cutting Maleficent's wings, he later became king, but he became paranoid with taking over the Moors with his hunt and vengeance for Maleficent after she cursed his newborn daughter. Physical Appearance King Stefan has scruffy chin-length hair, a beard that covers half his face, small eyes, bushy eyebrows and a skinny posture covered up by his regal King clothes that shows that even in his childhood days, he still hasn't changed. History Stefan was initially an orphaned peasant boy who lived in a barn but dreamed of one day living in the castle. As a child, he proved to be innocent, thoughtlessly kind, accepting in nature, more open-minded, and braver (or more desperate) than other humans as he was willing to venture into Moors to steal a crystal. However, he was caught and cornered by the Tree Warriors. Arriving at the scene, the Moor's fairy guardian named Maleficent convinces the boy to come out of hiding despite his fears that the Tree Warriors would kill him for stealing as she had never seen a human before. Upon seeing her, a young Stefan responds to Maleficent's observation that he's just a boy with how she's just a girl...he thinks? After some prodding, Stefan hands a shining crystal her and she drops it into the water after some examination before guiding him back to the borders. He comments how he would have kept it if he'd known she was going to throw it away. Maleficent corrects him, telling him that she was simply returning it home. As the talked, they bond over their lack of parents and mutual loneliness. Despite the fairy telling him he shouldn't return as it isn't safe, he is determined to come back in order to meet her. Shaking on it, the boy is instantly contrite when she accidentally burns herself on his iron ring and immediately takes it off and flings it into the distance. Touched that he, a poor peasant boy with so little, would throw away one of his few possessions without hesitation just to avoid hurting her, they quickly formed a friendship and he tells her how he likes her wings. They became companions and went on adventures in the Moors, with a young Maleficent even taking him flying. And over time, they grew to love each other to the point that he gifted her with the only thing he could afford to give her on her 16th birthday: a true love's kiss. Soon after though, Stefan left to seek his fortune and consequently chose to live among the humans over being with Maleficent in the Moors. Years later, it is seen that he winded up working as a servant for King Henry. After King Henry's defeat by Maleficent and the Forest Army, he contracted an infection and he laid on his deathbed when he gathered his lords and generals where he proclaimed that his kingdom and care of his daughter (marriage) would go to whoever killed the fairy and avenged him. Stefan overheard and left for the Moors, reuniting with his childhood friend and former lover after years of separation. He warns her about how the king is now targeting her specifically, begging her to trust him. They talked, catching up on each other's lives and "the years faded away...and all was as it had been long". Maleficent forgave him for "his folly and his ambition", accepting a drink from him as they cuddled. Stefan had doctored this drink with a potion that immediately put her into a deep, death-like sleep. However, he was unable to bring himself to kill her, hinting that at the time he was unable to sacrifice her life for his ambition. Improvising, he instead uses iron chains to burn and cut off his childhood friend's wings before leaving her and fleeing back to the castle to present the amputated limbs as proof that he'd killed the "winged creature". Thereafter, he becomes the new king alongside Queen Leila and they have a daughter named Aurora. On the day Aurora is to be christened, Maleficent interrupts the ceremony. Initially, Stefan tells her that she isn't welcome there and wasn't invited, but can only stand as she walks over to give baby Aurora a "gift" as well. His nervous agitation further confuses Queen Leila, who is ignorant of their history and bewildered by the undertones in Stefan and Maleficent's back and forth. He watches as Maleficent then curses Aurora to fall into "a sleep like death, a sleep from which she will never awaken " on her 16th birthday by pricking her finger on the spindle of a spinning wheel, inspired by one that was among the gifts for the princess. Recognizing the circumstances she set for the curse and that this was meant to be her revenge against him, he begs her not to do this. After hearing her comment about how she liked him begging, Stefan heeds the unspoken demand and slowly kneels in front of Maleficent and begs again. As a final jab at Stefan, she agreeably adds a clause where Aurora could be awoken. By "true love's kiss". Stefan despairs as, at this point, neither Stefan nor Maleficent truly believed such a thing actually exists, therefore raising Stefan's hopes only to bring them crashing down while publically humiliating him in the process. To protect Aurora from any further harm, Stefan sends baby Aurora away to be raised by the three pixies in a hidden cottage. Meanwhile, he has all the spinning wheels in the kingdom destroyed (with the remains thrown into the dungeons) and proceeds to spend the next 16 years on a campaign to pass through the wall of thorns Maleficent raised around the Moors and kill her. The boy who once thoughtlessly threw away his iron ring to prevent Maleficent from getting hurt grew into a man who outfitted his castle into a fortress with iron weapons and defenses and made extensive strategies to hunt her down and kill her. This included training his soldiers in tactics and iron weapons (shields, nets, chains, spears, etc.) specifically to trap and kill a fairy. Over time, he is "consumed by paranoia and vengeance", devoting all his focus, all his resources, and all his people towards the goal of destroying Maleficent and preventing the curse. It becomes an obsession for him, and he would spend time gazing at the wings he'd amputated and stolen, now kept on display in a locked glass box. Sometime during those years, Queen Leila contracts an illness and dies, though Stefan shows little reaction or grief. Even when his daughter returns, their reunion is abruptly short and Stefan quickly dismisses her in order to refocus on his battle plans, having her locked up in her room for protection. After Maleficent wakes Aurora with true love's kiss, the fairy is ambushed by Stefan and his soldiers. Once the soldiers encircled a disoriented, weakened Maleficent with iron shields, Stefan in his iron armor and outfitted with iron weapons walks through the fire and into the ring. After posturing, he beats, tortures, and taunts her, asking her how it is to be "a fairy creature without wings in a world where she don't belong". However, the tide is turned when Aurora finds Maleficent's wings, pushing over the case and freeing the struggling limbs that fly themselves back and reattach themselves right as Stefan was delivering the final blow. Wide-eyed in stunned horror, he looks back and forth in disbelief between a now winged Maleficent and his smiling daughter. Gathering his wits, he orders his soldiers to continue the attack, managing at one point to grab onto a long chain wrapped around the flying fairy's ankle. Pulling him off his feet and out the stained glass windows, she flies them around the castle and throws him onto the top of a tower. They struggle and Maleficent gains the upper hand, but lets him go and tells him that's over before turning away to leave. Unwilling to stop, he attacks her from behind and attempts to strangle her, their struggles resulting in both of them being thrown off the turret. While Maleficent is able to untangle herself from Stefan and stop her fall, the king falls to his death. In a deleted scene, Stefan's ambitiousness is emphasized when he delivers a meal to the King's bedchambers. Seeing the King's crown, Stefan tries it on and admires himself in the mirror. He's caught by Henry who remarks that it is one thing to wear a crown and another to own it before asking him how dark his heart is. That the question to ask oneself is what and who you're willing to sacrifice to get what you want, to discover what you're capable of and if those things are the worst imaginable and if his heart is black, then he too could have a crown one day. The King then dismiss Stefan with a warning never to touch the crown again. Stefan discovered just how black his heart is and just how much and how many he's willing to sacrifice. Ironically, not in pursuit of his childhood dream to become king, but in his all-consuming obsession to destroy his enemy. In the film, this darkness in Stefan's heart is reflected by the darkness of the human kingdom and the castle after the christening, as well as the almost ritual savageness in the final battle. Another thing to note is that in the final battle, Aurora is roughly pulled away by the soldiers and shoved aside/out of the way when trying to pull the iron net off her godmother. Their collective focus is to destroy Maleficent and no attention is paid to their princess's safety. Ironically, after overcoming the curse and this initially being about her protection, this inattention leads to Aurora almost being crushed by falling debris a few times in the ensuing battle. Only Maleficent notices the danger and calls for her to run. Whether or not Stefan (who was likely overseeing the battle before he stepped into the ring) saw Aurora in danger or not, his attitude and priorities reflect in his soldiers and their training. While this may have started out as a campaign to protect his daughter, Stefan's obsession and steady decline make it so that neither Aurora, her mother, nor the kingdom is of priority to Stefan anymore by the time Aurora returns. He and Maleficent are reflections of each other in that they both allowed vengeance to consume them, hurting others as collateral damage and (literally) darkening both of their kingdoms as a result. However, while Maleficent was able to let go of her grudge and walk away at the end when she had him by the throat, his inability to let go of his own grudge and obsession led to the final fall and his death. This was a cycle that was fueled by King Henry's greed, but he was started by the folly of Stefan's ambition and betrayal. Origin Almost nothing is known about King Stefan's origin. As a child, Stefan told Maleficent that he lived in a barn, his parents were dead and he also said that one day he would live in King Henry's Castle. Maleficent Stefan first appears when he stole a gem from the moors. After Maleficent tells him to return it, Stefan and Maleficent became close with each other where they also were best friends and lovers. On Maleficent's 16th birthday, he gave her what she believed is a true love kiss, but it wasn't and he stopped coming to see Maleficent some several years later. He later stole Maleficent's Wings in order to become new king. He married Leila (the daughter of the former King Henry) and she gave birth to a girl who they named "Aurora". Maleficent, enraged from Stefan's betrayal, cursed the newborn daughter and said she will fall to a sleep like death. After Stefan begged her to spare his daughter's life, Maleficent said that only a true love kiss will awake her. Over the next sixteen years, he became extremely paranoid and he was obsessed with hunting Maleficent down, so obsessed that he couldn't care less for his dying wife. After Maleficent managed to awake Aurora, he brutally tortures and beats Maleficent and taunts her. He almost killed her but she regained her wings and flew from the castle and he was defeated by her on the top of the castle. However, Stefan refused to accept his defeat and attacked Maleficent, causing both of them to fall, which resulted King Stefan's death. Trivia * King Stefan is different from King Stefan from Sleeping Beauty. ** Sleeping Beauty's King Stefan was good *** Maleficent has died at the hands of Prince Phillip ** Maleficent's King Stefan was initially good, but he became evil *** He dies from falling at such a high height during his battle with Maleficent *** He and Maleficent only met when Maleficent curses infant Aurora. Gallery * ''King Stefan/Gallery'' Category:Male Characters Category:Characters Category:Deceased Category:Villains